Productivity and Efficiency of Plywood Peeling: A Case Study

Citation

Abstract / Synopsis

In the wood based industries, the veneer and plywood
manufacturing is the second largest contributor to the
Malaysian economy. The process of the improvement of
plywood peeling involves increasing the productivity of
mill and efficiency of resource use. Productivity implies
the utilization of our resources efficiently and
effectively. Thus, the objectives of this study is to
determine the time consumptions, recovery rate,
productivity and relationship between output and input of
three types of lathe of an integrated plywood factory in
Peninsular Malaysia. Productivity was defined as the
ratio of output to input. Recovery was defined as the
ratio of green veneer output to the volume of log input.
Time consumption is the time consumed by individual
processing elements and total cycle time.
Three peelers (9 feet lathe, 5 feet lathe and 5 feet
aristo lathe) were studied during the 14 days of peeling
activities from 19 May to 4 June 1990. Data were
collected from the three types of peelers and on four
input factors (log, input, capital, utilities and labour
cost). The study measure the time spent in the peeling
process of peelers and total input value consumed by the
peelers. Time data were collected on the peeling process
namely charging, loading to the lathe, rounding-up,
peeling, reeling, removing core, cleaning the knife and
delay. Volume, value of veneer and four input factors
were also recorded throughout this study. The regression
analysis was used to determine relationship between
output and input as factor production of veneer.
The results showed that productivity per hour of 9
feet lathe, 5 feet lathe and 5 feet aristo lathe were
6.87 m , 3.99 m3 and 4.20 m3 respectively. Time required
to produce one m3 of green veneer by using 9 feet lathe,
5 feet lathe and 5 feet aristo lathe were 8.74 minutes,
15.04 minutes and 14.28 minutes respectively with the
recovery rate of 69.10%, 67.07% and 79.77% respectively.
Total productivity of 9 feet, 5 feet and aristo lathe per
M$ 1,000 were 2.62 m3, 2.55 m3 and 3.58 m3 respectively
and total productivity in ratio of output value per all
inputs value were 1.2013, 1.1664 and 1.6414 respectively.
The increasing costs of labour and utilities are not
influenced by the production of veneer. The green veneer
production increases 0.8 percent with the increase 1
percent of log input to the peeler. The increase of 1
percent of capital, the green veneer production will
increase 0.07 percent. Log input variable has the
greatest influence to the production of green veneer.